


The Calm After the Storm

by orphan_account



Category: Choices: High School Story: Class Act (Visual Novel), Choices: With Every Heartbeat (Visual Novel), With Every Heartbeat
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-05
Updated: 2020-08-05
Packaged: 2021-03-06 07:07:28
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,262
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25719310
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: Your life after Dakota’s death was everything any individual could dream of. However, you come across the video you refused to watch after graduation. The one he sent you that compiled your senior year.
Relationships: Dakota Winchester x mc
Kudos: 2





	The Calm After the Storm

**Author's Note:**

> Loved this book. I cried so much like a little dork lol. Hope you enjoy this too.

You stared at the email you refused to delete. The one where it was a video compiled of your whole senior year. The year you spent with Dakota.

It was quite humorous actually. Maybe more morbid than humorous, but, still. You were going through files on your personal laptop at work when you came across an email you had saved from almost two decades ago. You placed the back of your hand over your mouth as you hovered over the play button. It was like a sensation of bottled up emotions crashed into you. Those feelings you had forced behind you. The feelings that made your heart feel like it was being cut open. Now, you were fairly older now. Much wiser and a steady head over your shoulder, but, this... this was a part of you that you threw away when you left for college. A part of you that hurt too much.

What was the icing on the cake was the weather outside. DC’s forecast for the week was constant rain with thunder for however long it wanted to continue. What a Monday.

You opted on hitting the play button despite your better judgement. You could never say no to him.

“Hey Teach...” His voice. That voice. You felt a lump in your throat. Your mind kept telling you to pause that damned video. But, your heart? It yearned for that voice. Those feelings. That love.. the first love. Your first love.

There was a knock on your door.

“Dr. Rosen?”

Of course you couldn’t play this video. You were at work! And you worked pretty fucking hard to get here. A degree at Grantmore in California for Law. Then Harvard for grad school.. then your Doctorate’s in law. A public servant to the States. You made a life for yourself. A lot of friends, men came and go, and Amy never left. Some things.. just never changed.

You took a deep breath. “Yes?”

“There’s a case you might want to look at. It’s regarding the President.”

Ah, yes. You are the attorney general of the United States. A quite prestigious title. Of course you couldn’t play that damned video.. You had justice to serve. Yet...your cursor was still hovered over the play button.

Fuck it.

“Leave it. I’m handling a pressing matter right now.” Your voice was firm enough to put a believable facade that you were in fact busy.. dealing with something that needed the utmost urgency.

At one point, he was the utmost urgency.

When footsteps faded, you bit at your bottom lip. And decided to pull the trigger.

You hit play.

His face filled the screen with his wonderful bright smile that reached his deep set eyes. The bags under it more prominent. Yet, his voice was as melodic as it was when you last heard it.

“Hey Teach, First, I love you. You thought I would be done after the first video? I hope you come back to this one when you’re that bad ass lawyer you always wanted to be...”

Everything drowned out. The phone that was ringing. Your cell phone that was blowing up. It was like tunnel vision as you watch him speak. Your hands started to tremor, the finger that hit play was still hovered over the screen. You felt a lump in your throat start to swell up.

Oh Dakota...

_“Dakota,” you started, wringing your hands together as you looked anywhere other than him. You were visiting him on a weekend even though he insisted for you to spend your weekend out of town with Amy. However, arguing with you was like a brick wall, he’d never be able to convince you otherwise once your mind was set._

_Your boyfriend peered up at you curiously. His thin arm rising to invite you into that spot you usually nestled yourself into. When you would lay against him and watch Netflix off of your laptop you would bring. He loved to lean his cheek against the top of your head as you two would scroll the Horror genre until it was time for you to leave. “What is it?”_

_You stood firmly in front of him. Your eyes finally met his and instantly, you felt the tears start to form. You weren’t strong enough for this. God, you could never be. Maybe it was your heart. You were too soft, too weak. And deep down, Dakota always knew it. He knew that you wouldn’t be physically capable of watching him die in front of you. Or even watching him as he grew weaker and weaker._

_“Hey...,” he whispered. His eyes had softened as he took hold of your hand. His grip was so weak, that even trying to hold your wrist was difficult for him. Dakota slid his hand to your hip as he watched your lower lip tremble as you hid back your cry._

_You hated to see him like this. You hated yourself more. You couldn’t be strong enough for him and it made you sick. “Dakota,” you choked out once more, your tears started to flow freely. You immediately clenched your eyes shut as you broke out into sobs. It hurt. It hurt so bad. How could you love him so hard that every fiber in your body was aching?_

_Dakota sat up as fast as he could and wrapped his arms around you, pulling you to him as he kissed the top of your forehead. He let you sob into his chest as he rubbed circles in your back. He knew he should’ve never let you fall in love with him, if only he wasn’t so selfish._

You didn’t notice a tear had slipped from your eye. You were stuck like a statue, staring at someone you had drank to when you first turnt 21. Actually, let’s get real. You took your first sip of alcohol with Lennox when he died. That shot you downed on the night after his death. You would remember it for the rest of your life. You were never strong enough for him and it killed you throughout these years. As you lived on without him, you did an incredibly unhealthy move by pushing him in the back of your mind. In the deepest crevices of your soul, never addressing the heartache or the mental weight his death placed on you. This heart of yours, yearned for him. Yearned for him to come back, yearned for it all to be some sick joke. And as you grew older, you realized that your coping mechanism wasn’t the healthiest.. but by the time you noticed, it was too late. A good time with booze. Never without booze. You would promise anyone that tequila would erase the memory of him, even if for only a period of time. But the warmth of the alcohol was enough to get you through the night, before doing it all over again.

“Teach, I know you’re gonna do great things. Our love is something that’ll never be replaced. I hope that one day.. one day you find something that sets your heart on overdrive. Something that’ll spark a passion in your heart...”

You had graduated with your Bachelor’s. You did it. You finally fucking did it. You instantly looked up to the sky, remembering how he said he would be watching you. Was he proud? Was he smiling? Was he upset you didn’t graduate with any honors? Or was he more upset you spent every day of college drinking?

“ _Are you going to the Kappa’s party tonight?”_

_You were pushed back into the present and reality. Turning your head to the voice, you grinned, “Am I?”It was more rhetorical than anything. Of course you would go, everyone depended on you to be the life of the party._

_Tiffany grinned., “you’re the life of the party, it’s not a party without ‘ya.” She gave you a quick hug and waved before running off to make her rounds._

_You glanced around you and saw your sorority friends waving at you to come over there. You started walking to them when you saw a glimpse of brown hair running past you through your peripheral. Was it...? Your eyes followed the movement and for a split second, you thought you saw warm chestnut colored eyes sparkling at you. It seemed like Dakota, in his hoodie and jacket, with his infamous smile that lit up rooms, scratch that, lit up football fields._

_You turned your head once again when you heard that name. Your eyes were wide and honestly, you looked a little lost as you kept turning to face what you sensed.. or what you thought you sensed. It felt like craziness. He’s dead. He’s been dead for four years now._

_“Teach!”_

_A football player ran towards a woman in a suit. He was in his jersey and khakis. “Teach, thanks for this semester. I wouldn’t have passed with you.”_

_The woman smiled and shook his hand, wishing him well on his journey into the NFL._

_You shook your head out of that daze and felt in your pockets. As you walked toward your group, one of the girls had her arms crossed._

_“Took long enough, were you lost walking fifty steps?”_

_You forced a grin, “hungover, sorry.”_

_She smiled and wrapped her arms around you, “All jokes babe, congrats grad.”_

_Everyone else circled around you as they hugged you excitedly. The camaraderie was actually enlightening. From freshman year to seniors, they were your girls as you were theirs. The ones who listened to you when you would cry hopelessly in bed. The ones who_ _forced you out to socialize and take care of yourself. You needed a push more than anything. And they knew of Dakota, but, they didn’t know how much he haunted your mind when you were without alcohol in your system._

“ _What next?” Your little asked, her eyes twinkling as she awaited your response. Are you going straight to work? Going overseas?_

_You grinned, “Shots, obviously...”_

_Everyone cheered as you all headed back to the house to get ready for the party._

“I love you, and I’m gonna keep saying it until you get sick of me. I just want you to know that, I don’t regret a single moment I spent with you.” Dakota smiled in the video, his chestnut colored eyes glistened as tears formed. He immediately shook his head, to stop those tears from falling, “I love you. Forever.”

You stopped the video and slammed the laptop shut. You placed your hands over your face, sighing loudly. “Fuck,” you murmured, using your index fingers to wipe the tears that were forming before it touched your lashes.

You stared up at the ceiling, blinking rapidly. You went years without watching those damned videos. It’s like the wounds never healed from day one. The Winchester’s had called to invite you over for Holidays, desperately wanting to grasp onto any remembrance of his son as tight as they could. You would politely decline, instead, sending them highlights of your college years. It was the selfishness in you that prevented yourself from opening that door when he died. Mateo and Lennox had tried to contact you several times until the texts slowed down, and fully ceased when you had received your Doctorate’s. After so many years, you learned to cope with his death by pretending like he never existed, like those people you’ve met never met you, and like that life you lived in Massachusetts was a drifting memory. Everything you’ve built from the ground up, from your Law Firm, to you being sworn in as an Attorney General, all it was from you, and you had no one to celebrate it with. How lonely it was, the life you lived.

Yet, there was that one thing in your life that prevented you from moving forward with relationships. You didn’t have kids. You never married. Maybe it was because you couldn’t let go of that haunting person in your mind. Or maybe it was simply the fact that you were scared shitless to be left behind, once again. Your mother would constantly tell you that your heart was so big and as you think back to that moment, you would snort at the mere idea that someone as crude as you would be so selfless and loving at one point in time.

A bitter woman was what you were. Never for a second giving into the men who flocked your way. Each man you’ve went out with was either too annoying. Too kind. Too loving. Too mean. There was always something negative you found. So instead, you’d drink your nights away into oblivion as the vivid image of Dakota would flash through your mind, the look of worry, tiredness, anguish. As your mind went to that point, where your heart wanted you to relive all the fond memories and remember your high school love, your brain wouldn’t allow it, knowing that you were a ticking time bomb.

The business line started ringing which snapped you out of your trance. Work wasn’t over and it never is. You devoted your life to work and in return, it commended you with the highest position in Law. It brought you peace to know that this would never leave you. Not ever. You hesitated answering the phone, but did anyways.

“Attorney General.”

“...”

There was complete silence on the other line, but, you could hear the deep breathing. You felt your stomach clench. “Hello?”

“Yes. Hi, it’s me Mateo.. but, before you hang up..”


End file.
